In a July 22nd report in Newsday, Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce reported that Bob Novak's response to how he received the leak of a CIA operative's name from a Senior Administration official was, "I didn't dig it up, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name, and I used it."
In recent times, under the hot lights of public interrogation, if you will, Novak is changing his tune. He has repeatedly said this week that the leak was given to him casually. He has even flip-flopped quite a bit on the Newsday quote he gave to Royce and Phelps in July. When asked about the quote on Wolf Blitzer Reports, Novak responded that Royce and Phelps "made a bad mistake. They said they[Novak's sources] came to me with the information. I never told them that. And that's not in quotes, is it?" Then he added, "So, they made that up. I never said that."
Well, according to Meet the Press, everything Novak said to Royce and Phelps was in quotes, and Novak is now backing off the claim that Newsday misquoted him. When Tim Russert challenged Novak with the quote, his reponse was, "That isn't very artfully put. What I was trying to say was that I didn't do an investigative report in the CIA." That is quite a different response then the firm denial of the quote's authenticity to Wolf Blitzer just a few days before.
On a similar note, but regarding a different set of people, Newsweek's Evan Thomas and Michael Isikoff are going to report this week that a source close to Amb. Wilson is saying that Hardball's host Chris Matthews called Wilson and said, "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game." Mattews has refused to discuss any coversations he may have had with Karl Rove. However, a source close to Rove ackowledges "that Rove spoke to Matthews a few days after Novak’s column appeared."
Posted by Paul Hina at October 5, 2003 02:03 PM